Dr. Kimberly Lee trained at Stanford Medical School and did her residency in head and neck surgery at UCLA, which is where she learned the face layer by layer. She never expected to work in aesthetics. As chief resident, a woman whose face had been mauled by a bear was helicoptered into her emergency room, and she put it back together so well that you cannot tell today that it happened. That surgery is what sent her into facial plastic and reconstructive surgery. She now operates above the collarbone only, out of Beverly Hills Facial Plastic Surgery.

A facelift is not a skin pull. Pull the skin on its own and the tension stretches it straight back out, so what she repositions and tightens is the muscular layer underneath, called the SMAS, and the extra skin is draped on top and removed with no tension left on it. Deep plane, the one everybody is arguing about online, goes beneath that layer and releases some of the ligaments holding the tissue in place so it can be moved further. Her read on the argument is that there is no single facelift that is right for every face, so the technique is decided at the consultation, not in advance.

She is just as clear about what a facelift does not do. It does not put volume back in the cheeks and it does not take away fine lines around the eyes and mouth, which is why it is usually one part of a plan that also includes volume restoration or skin resurfacing. Plenty of patients arrive asking for one because of something they saw online, and what they are reading as sagging turns out to be volume loss, in which case she says so rather than operating.

We also cover why patients now arrive in their forties and what preventative means at that age, whether you really only get three facelifts in a lifetime (she has a patient on her third, one a decade), exactly where the incisions sit and why she hides them in the tragus and inside the hairline, the awake facelift and what decides whether it is safe for you, recovery week by week including when you can wash your hair and the patient who went to a black tie event three weeks out, the facial nerve every patient should ask their surgeon about before booking, what separates a natural result from an overdone one, and on price, why the advertised numbers vary so wildly, what a quote from her practice covers (the surgeon's fee, the operating room and the anesthesia) and what it does not (medications, pre-op bloodwork and post-op recovery care), and why she tells patients who cannot afford it yet to save up rather than go cheap.

Find Dr. Lee:
Website: https://www.kimberlyleemd.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkimberlylee
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drkimberlylee
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeverlyHillsFacialPlasticSurgeryCenter
📍 Beverly Hills, California

Find a facelift provider near you: https://getclearbeauty.com/face-lift/?utm_source=podcast

Dr. Goretti Ho Taghva founded LEA Plastic Surgery in Newport Beach about eight years ago, after training at Brown and USC and fifteen years in Orange County deliberately offering a quieter result than the one the area is known for. LEA is her three daughters’ initials, so despite what half her patients call her, she is not Dr. Leah.

An endoscopic breast augmentation puts the incision in the crease of the armpit instead of under the breast, which means no scar on the breast at all. Hers run about three to three and a half centimeters, and because the armpit sits well away from the breast, she works through a camera on a narrow tube and places the implant with a funnel rather than by hand. She can still put the implant above or below the muscle, so the route in doesn’t decide the result.

Surgeons who don’t perform it tell patients it hurts more, scars more and carries more risk. She performs all three incisions and finds the opposite, and she explains why: the armpit incision heals away from the skin the implant is stretching, so there is no tension on it. She also thinks the camera is the reason, and that the equipment being expensive is why some practices still do this blind, which she would not accept in 2026.

We also cover how big an implant can go in this way, why almost everyone picks silicone in a blind feel test and why one of her patients still chose saline, why the ten‑year replacement rule is outdated, whether implants can come back out the same way, breastfeeding and nipple sensation, who should use the standard incision instead, the four questions to ask a surgeon before booking, the practical things nobody warns you about like shaving days ahead and skipping deodorant, and the price: around $15,000 all in, about twenty percent more than the standard incision.

Find Dr. Taghva:

Website: https://leaplasticsurgery.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leaplasticsurgery
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leaplasticsurgery

Newport Beach, California
Find a breast augmentation provider near you: https://getclearbeauty.com/breast-augmentation/?utm_source=podcast

Erika Luren is a nurse practitioner who has been injecting for about fifteen years. She started in dermatology, assisting in surgery, which is where she learned where the muscles and fat pads actually sit under the face. She now runs Aura Aesthetics, her in‑person clinic in Nevada, and Rolling Wellness, online care for weight loss, peptides and hormones.

Cheeks don’t simply deflate. The fat pads shrink and slide forward, and the cheekbone underneath loses density, so a face loses its structure before it loses its volume. That is why treating the cheeks softens the lines around the mouth, and why Erika works out where someone’s face sat in her twenties instead of filling every dip she can see.

She explains how she chooses between RHA, Radiesse and Sculptra, how deep each one goes, and why thin skin rules some of them out. She also gives her rule of thumb: about one syringe per decade of life to treat a whole face, or one to two syringes for cheeks alone. Results last around a year, though a fast metabolism can cut that to six months.

We also get into how faces end up overfilled and what it takes to dissolve it, why nobody’s face is symmetrical and filler can’t make it so, what rapid weight loss does to the cheeks, who she turns away and sends to a plastic surgeon instead, the arnica she starts a week before an appointment, and what she charges: $499 a syringe.

Find Erika:
Website: https://rollingwellness.life
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rolling_wellness
Both Aura Aesthetics, seen by appointment in Nevada, and Rolling Wellness online book through that site.

Find a cheek filler provider near you: https://getclearbeauty.com/cheek-filler/?utm_source=podcast

Christina Williamson is a registered nurse who runs Selective Aesthetics, her own practice in Denver next to Coors Field. She worked in cardiac intensive care and pediatric neurology, moved fully into aesthetics after the pandemic, and spent time at large med spas before opening her own practice almost two years ago. In this episode she explains SkinVive, a very thin hyaluronic acid injected into the skin itself to improve hydration and fine lines without adding volume.

We cover:

How SkinVive differs from filler, and why the difference is depth rather than product

Why skin boosters and skin quality are replacing the overfilled look

What the appointment feels like, from numbing to about 100 tiny injections per side

Downtime: small bruises and about 24 hours before makeup

When results show up, and why she repeats it once a year

Why every skin tone can have it, while IPL isn’t an option for darker skin

How it pairs with Botox, Daxxify and Sculptra, and why Sculptra can’t go near the eyes or lips

Why she uses it for bridal glow and in summer, when lasers are on pause

Real pricing: $800 for her minimum treatment and $1,000 for two syringes per side

When she tells a patient their money is better spent elsewhere

Why she left the sales quotas of big med spas behind

Find Christina:

Website: https://selectiveaestheticsdenver.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selectiveaesthetics

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selectiveaesthetics

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@selectiveaestheticsco

1951 Wazee St, #210, Denver

Find a SkinVive provider near you:

https://getclearbeauty.com/skinvive/?utm_source=podcast

Sarah Patel is the operating partner at Opulence Chicago, a medical spa in the West Loop, and she came to aesthetics from neurointerventional radiology a decade ago. She explains biostimulators the way you'd want a friend to: filler is the frosting, Sculptra is the cake, and most people who look overfilled needed the cake.

We cover:

• What a biostimulator actually is, and why your own body does the work
• Why Sculptra has been around since the 1990s and was discovered on HIV patients
• How Radiesse differs, and when it behaves like a filler instead
• Why the overfilled look is usually a skin problem being treated with volume
• What GLP-1 weight loss is doing to faces, and why she says everyone needs Sculptra eventually
• The appointment start to finish, and why she mixes it in front of you
• Numbing: topical and lidocaine, and why she does not use nerve blocks for this
• The massage protocol, and why five minutes five times a day for five days turned out to be overkill
• Whether the one vial per decade of life rule holds up
• How long results last, and why she compares it to a 401k
• Real pricing: $700 to $900 a vial, and $1,500 to $1,800 for two
• Who is not a candidate, and the two areas she will never inject

Find Sarah:

Website: https://www.opulencechicago.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/opulence_chicago
630 W Lake St, Suite 3, Chicago

Find a Sculptra provider near you: https://getclearbeauty.com/sculptra/?utm_source=podcast

Renee Pinlac spent 17 years as a nurse practitioner at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital before opening De La Belle Wellness & Spa in Memphis. She explains microneedling with PRP as tilling a garden and then planting a premium seed, and she is direct about what it costs and why.

We cover:

• What PRP actually is, and why she calls it your body's own repair kit
• Why combining it with microneedling does more than either treatment alone
• Whether it genuinely helps hyperpigmentation and melasma, and the hormonal reason melasma is so stubborn
• What a medical-grade device does that an at-home roller does not, and how an at-home one can make things worse
• The sterility questions to ask before anyone draws your blood, including what tube it goes in
• Whether age or health affects how well your own platelets work
• Treating darker skin tones, and why she says the darker the better
• Real pricing: $750 to $950 for one treatment, and $1,150 when the PRP is injected

Find Renee:

Website: https://delabelle.net
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/delabellewellness
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DelabelleSpa

Find a microneedling with PRP provider near you: https://getclearbeauty.com/microneedling-with-prp/?utm_source=podcast

Rachel V-Rey is a nurse practitioner with 25 years in medicine, from oncology to emergency care to aesthetics, and she runs 2Restore & Rejuven8 as a concierge service that comes to you around Tampa.

She explains how to tell a medical consultation from a sales floor, why your first visit should open with an intake form instead of a package list, and what to ask about an injector's training when there is no single certification to look for.

We also cover:

• Why your full medical history decides which treatments you're eligible for, even for something as routine as Botox
• What the red flags are behind an unusually cheap Botox deal, including expired or long-reconstituted product
• How much one syringe of filler actually covers, and why she describes it as the size of a blueberry
• Why naming your real budget works better than hunting for a discount
• What commission and sales quotas can do to the treatment you're offered
• The questions you're entitled to ask, and why a good provider wants to hear them

Find Rachel:

Website: https://2restore-rejuven8.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/2Restore.Rejuven8
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/2RestoreAndRejuven8
Call or text: (813) 417-9797
Serving Wesley Chapel and the greater Tampa area, with free 15 minute consultations.

Find a provider near you: https://getclearbeauty.com/pod